PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi’s comments last week on whether working women can have it all—a fulfilling career and family life—has reignited the debate on how best to balance career and family. Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, CEO of Center for Talent Innovation and mother of four, thinks women can have it all but maybe not all …

A new study shows that money is the leading cause of stress among women. ELLE’s Agenda board weighs in: Money. Like it or not, no other factor so strongly drives our lives, hopes, dreams, and—as this hot-off-the- presses survey of American women and men found—our stress, as does cold hard cash. For many, the anxiety …

WASHINGTON — In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. “No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision. “No union is more profound than …

Sheri Atwood’s most compelling childhood memories revolve around her divorced parents fighting bitterly over money. The conflict was so severe that abuse allegations meant Atwood and her two older siblings were placed in foster homes and children’s shelters, and her father kidnapped the children for months at a time in an effort to avoid paying support to …

Outdoor clothing company Patagonia has recently endorsed the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (FAMILY Act). This means the company now provides company-paid healthcare, sick time, and access to on-site childcare for all employees, in addition to paid maternity and paternity leave. Our employees lives as parents are not fragmented from their work, they help each …

Spencer Gilden grabs his daughter’s lunch on the way out the door to summer camp and buckles her into a car seat. He and 4-year-old Julie spend the car ride singing Katy Perry songs or talking about camp activities. After drop-off, Gilden, 36, heads to his home office to make a sale or two of …

The nation’s birth rate rose 1% last year as parents in the U.S. welcomed nearly 4 million babies into the world, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That increase may not sound like much, but it’s the first time the birth rate has gone up in seven years. …

Nearly three-quarters of American mothers with children at home are employed. That fact doesn’t necessarily make it any easier for mothers to drop a toddler at day care or miss school plays. The mommy wars might seem like a relic of the 1990s, but 41 percent of adults say the increase in working mothers is …

Each year, a division of the American Psychological Association holds a poster contest for entries with international content where students are first authors. One of our students, Victor Lopez ’17, along with Professor Kanaya and co-author Alicia Frausto ’17, presented his poster at this year’s Western Psychological Association conference in Las Vegas and WON first …

More Millennials are willing to leave America for better promise of work life balance. This week, global professional services firm EY released new findings from a global survey about the work-life challenges today’s employees confront. It asked 9,700 full-time workers in eight countries, and in companies of varying sizes, about what makes today’s workers tick—and ticked off. One strong …

Massachussetts expands its maternity leave act to also grant new fathers eight weeks of unpaid time off. Expanding paternity leave for fathers will help make families stronger, advocates say, noting that the more both parents are involved in the lives of their children, the more successful those children will be. Having time to care for and …

It appears that a greater proportion of millennials will be single throughout life than previous generations. This could have massive implications on the work climate. Millennials. Today they are the cool demographic that companies are trying to attract as employees and as customers. But in 20 years, millennials will be distinctly middle-aged, between 35 and 55 …

Children under 14 are now allowed to work in India under certain circumstances. NEW DELHI: In a controversial labour reform, the government plans to push through an amendment to the Child Labour Prohibition Act in the current session of Parliament, which will allow children below the age of 14 to work in select family enterprises …

According to a recent study conducted by the Families and Work Institute, employees are seeking: 1) Work-life fit 2) Advice on how to speak with managers about flexible work options 3) Help dealing with family caregiver responsibilities 4) Companies that create effective and flexible workplaces 5) Employers who aren’t workflex virgins To read the full …

Many employees do not reveal their children’s ages. How old are your children? It seems like a simple question. But it can be an awkward one for working parents with children in their teens, 20s and beyond. They don’t want to lie when asked about their children’s ages—but they don’t want to be seen as …

The new collection of essays named Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed, was recently published to dismantle the assumption of selfishness associated with the decision not to have children. Through 16 funny, devastating, infuriating, and insightful essays, the authors shed light on a social stigma that has remained pervasive in the 21st century. The concept of the innate biological …

The United Kingdom is offering 30 hours of free childcare to working families. David Cameron has announced that working families with three or four-year-old children will get 30 hours of free childcare a week under a Conservative government. In a pitch to working families across the country, the Prime Minister said that he will double …

Lukas offers insight on maternity leave from a perspective of a childless woman. American women often hear how good European women have it, with guaranteed, lengthy, state-provided maternity leave. Having lived in EU countries for six years, I’ve seen up close many moms enjoying an idyllic, post-baby time-off. But I’ve also heard from women with very …

Sarah Fell had been laid off from her senior-level job in her third trimester when she decided to launch FlexJobs in 2007. The company offers a $15-a-month subscription service that provides job listings for flexible positions across various careers and industries. In this piece, she explains what makes a flexible job arrangement work best for employer and employee. …

The Economist outlines struggles of a family business. JAPANESE BUSINESSES HAVE come up with a logical solution to the problem of disappointing heirs: find better ones. The easiest way to do this is to persuade your daughter to marry a talented man. (“You can’t choose your sons,” goes a Japanese adage, “but you can choose …

Apart from providing us with the obvious physical benefits of walking, walking meetings help break down formalities, foster camaraderie between co-workers, and lead to more creative thinking. To gauge walking’s effect on creativity, Schwartz and Oppezzo had test subjects walk and sit, and then asked them to find alternate uses for everyday items like tires …

There is growing income inequality in this country and Reeves believes a good portion of it is due to “assortative mating” (marriage between people of similar backgrounds). There is a growing trend in the United States toward assortative mating—a clunky phrase that refers to people’s tendency to choose spouses with similar educational attainment. Rising numbers …

When you search “CEO” on Google Images, the first woman to appear after dozens of men is a plastic doll CEO. Unfortunately, additional images mostly include hyper-sexualized female caricatures. The main concern here is the low number of women portrayed in positions of power on the internet. About twenty-seven percent of American CEOs, for example, are women. But …

Is there too much societal pressure on mothers? A stay-at-home mother named Lydia Lovric recently lit up social media across North America with an article in Huffington Post Canada titled “Dear Daughter, Here’s Why I Don’t Work.” Lovric explained that she left a “fancy job” she loved to take care of her children because “your …

PwC introduced an interesting report on the future of work as they envision three possible delineations into work “worlds”. The Blue World In this scenario “big company capitalism” rules and the primary goal and purpose of a business is to focus on profits, revenue, and growing market share, pretty similar to what companies focus on today …

Fisher-Yoshida offers advice to working mothers and fathers about balancing these two important aspects of life. Workplace bias can hit hard, especially if you’re already feeling vulnerable about the choices you are making. So, what do you do? First, determine if it is a violation of your rights. If so, don’t be afraid to go …

With over 13,000 graduate business schools out there, how do I choose the right MBA program for me? If you ever catch yourself wondering that, search no more. The New York Times has compiled a list of the right MBA program for each major American company. Firms include Apple, McKinsey, and Amazon. To see the full list, click …

America’s fertility rate is dropping. The percentage of U.S. women in their 30s and 40s who are childless is rising, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau show. Some 15.3% of U.S. women aged 40 to 44 were childless in June 2014, up from 15.1% in 2012. Changes in Census’s data processing likely affected its estimates for 2010 to … Continue reading →

Tech Crunch analyzing difficulty in work life balance. Establishing your balance early Conventional wisdom is that dads aren’t naturally good with children or don’t want to spend time with them. But according to a study of 1,000 fathers on “Fathering in the Workplace,” fathers spent 2.65 hours with their kids on a typical work day (I’d … Continue reading →

When his elder daughter entered first grade, Gary Clarke signed up to be a class parent, organizing and participating in all kinds of special events in her classroom and being a liaison between the teacher and other parents. The catch? For an entire term, Clarke – a stay-at-home dad in Massachusetts, who for the last … Continue reading →

How to manage stress effectively is one of life’s great challenges – for example our survey of public and voluntary sector professionals found that 93% said they are stressed at work either all, some, or a lot of the time. While it seems the world is still short of a quick fix, here are some cheap and … Continue reading →

After several months of research and coding data, Professor Kanaya, a graduate student, and I decided to focus on the fact that the frequency in communication styles differed between the European American and Latino American mothers depending on what type of task they were given. When mothers and their children were asked to create a story, … Continue reading →

I presented my findings in a poster presentation at WPA and it was received with a lot of attention. For an hour and fifteen minutes I did not stop talking. Different visitors, students, professors, and judges, all stopped and asked me questions about the project. Anybody that stopped and looked at my poster shared an … Continue reading →

As of this Friday (May 5), Goldman Sachs will be doubling its paid paternity leave to 4 weeks following the birth or legal adoption of a child. The policy also applies to partners in same-sex unions. To continue reading, click here. Continue reading →

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